Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Did Russians Target Democratic Voters, With Kushner’s Help?

In many respects, we’re all in the dark when it comes to the ongoing Russia investigations.

Behind closed doors, what are congressional and FBI investigators learning?

What new leads are being chased?

Who in Donald Trump’s orbit is under the microscope?

If there was “coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, what form did that take?

While so much remains unanswered, the public has received several clues. We know, for example, that President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is being investigated, as is Trump’s former campaign aide and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Last week, new reporting shined a light on one focus of the congressional investigation: determining how the Russians knew which voters to target with their disinformation campaign. A report from TIME’s Massimo Calabresi on Thursday provided new details:

As they dig into the viralizing of such stories, congressional investigations are probing not just Russia’s role but whether Moscow had help from the Trump campaign. Sources familiar with the investigations say they are probing two Trump-linked organizations: Cambridge Analytica … and Breitbart News.

Musicians

Quotes

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities." — Adam Smith (1723-1790)

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." — Thomas Jefferson

"A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay." — Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888)

"... to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed." — Theodore Rosevelt

"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite
world is either a madman or an economist." — Kenneth Boulding
(1910-1993)

Tom Maertens served as National Security Council director for nonproliferation and homeland defense under Presidents Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush, and as deputy coordinator for counterterrorism in the State Department during and after 9/11. Before retiring from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2002, he had served in Ethiopia, Colombia, the USSR, Panama, Austria, and Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Leigh Pomeroy has written on subjects ranging from politics to health care to film to wine. He has assisted on two books, Dr. D's Handbook for Men Over 40 by Dr. Peter Dorsen and Not What the Doctor Ordered by Jeffrey C. Bauer. In 2004, he was the DFL (Democratic Party) Candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District. He formerly taught writing and film at Minnesota State University, Mankato.